Page 1 of Sapphire Storm

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Someone was crying in Ethan’s pastry kitchen.

He’d lived all over the world, trained in some of the finestrestaurants and hotels on the planet. At forty-three, he’d finally landed hisdream job, head pastry chef at an exclusive resort. He knew full well that mostprofessional kitchens were nonstop hives of frenzied activity, places offrequent injuries and near infernos.

Still, it was out of the ordinary to discover one of yourteam members rocking back and forth on her knees in front of the oven as if theVirgin Mary had just appeared to her in the window. And insulted her cooking.

But that was exactly the sight that greeted Ethan when hearrived at Sapphire Cove on Saturday morning.

He noted the sharp scent of burning sugar and diagnosed thescene instantly. Carefully, he crouched down beside his distraught junior chef.

“I’m an idiot and I should die!” Stephanie Powell wailed.

The young woman weighed almost nothing soaking wet, but hisattempts to bring her to her feet with several gentle tugs on her forearm allfailed. “You’re not an idiot,” he said, “and I’d very much appreciate it if youlived as I enjoy working with you.”

“Oh my God. It stinks. Everyone’s going tohateme.”

Indeed, she’d made a rookie mistake, but he saw no point inpouring salt on the wound. Once she’d stood of her own volition, he said,“We’ll call engineering and see if there’s a side panel they can remove itthrough. Now please. Let’s not descend into a shame spiral over this.”

Stephanie sniffled, then wiped her nose with the tissueEthan had yanked from a nearby box. “I just wanted to make everybody somepudding, and I thought if I put it in the oven for a bit, I could finish it offwith a nice crust.”

“Yes, well, it sounds like youjammedit in theoven, and so word to the wise, if the pan doesn’t quite fit at first, don’t riskit. There’s a good chance it’ll expand during the cook cycle and be impossibleto get out. Also, while I do realize we work in a bit of a bubble here in thepastry kitchen, most grown-ups don’t have pudding for breakfast.”

Stephanie grabbed him by his shoulders. “Please fire me,Chef. If you don’t, everyone’ll give me a terrible nickname over this. LikePuddin’. Or Bernie. Or Crusty.”

“No one’s going to give you a nickname. We don’t donicknames here.”

“Morning, Puff Pastry!” Chloe Simmons bellowed as she threwopen the door to the pastry kitchen. The head chef’s work on the breakfastbuffet had left her with a sweaty brow and cheeks so flushed they almostmatched the flame red curls spilling out from under the black handkerchief shewas using as a headband.

“She’s main kitchen,” Ethan whispered to Stephanie. “Shedoesn’t count.”

Chloe barged her way in. “Jonas is looking for you, Ethan.Woah.Stinks in here! You guys puttin’ crude oil in the profiteroles now?”Dramatically waving one arm in front of her face, she zeroed in on theoffending oven. “Jammed it in, did yah? Smart! This should only set you guysback like, what, a day?”

Leaving Stephanie with instructions to call engineering andseveral more assurances that her career wasn’t over, he stepped out into themain kitchen, where breakfast buffet items were being busily prepared on allsides of him.

A summons to the office of the resort’s special eventsdirector was usually serious business, and he intended to make haste.

Matching him step for step, Chloe quietly said, “You need tofire her. Kitchens are all stress all the time. She’s not up to it.”

“A correction, my dear Chloe.Yourkitchen is allstress all the time. My little corner of Sapphire Cove is a place of artistryand wonder, where dazzling creations are assembled over a period of days whileyour staff tears each other apart over who’s going to haul six hundred poundsof scrambled eggs up to the breakfast buffet.”

“She doesn’t know how an oven works, Ethan. And she’s cryingat ten a.m. Give her the boot or you’ll pay for it, promise.”

“Nonsense. Her problem was one of scale and mathematics. Imade a similar mistake when I was her age, only the hotel where I was workingwas an old Scottish castle and the ovens were wood fired from the cellar. Ittook seventy-two hours to get them back on. Nobody fired me.”

“Probably because you were the cutest one there.”

Ethan stopped and turned to face her. “A question, Chloe.Are you following me right now because you know I’m a better chef and you’redesperate to learn from my brilliance?”

She grinned and pinched him on the cheek. She loved their regularsparring as much as he did. Like so many people who made professional cuisinetheir profession, adrenaline and edge drove her.

“A word of warning, brother,” she said. “Whatever Jonaswants to talk to you about, it’s the Peyton wedding, so expect everyone to beout of their minds because that event’s already making people...” She finishedoff the sentence by twirling a finger through the air next to her ear.

“I appreciate it,” he answered sincerely.

And he did.

Diana Peyton, one of the most famous actresses in the world,had booked two of the hotel’s ballrooms for her daughter Rachel’s wedding in alittle over a month. Not only would it be the biggest event on the calendarthat year,it wouldbe one of the biggest in thehotel’s history. Two celebrities were involved, and while the mother wasconsiderably more famous than the daughter, the daughter had won a Tony a fewmonths before and was widely considered the better actress of the two. Threedifferent entertainment shows were scheduled to cover the event, and so manycelebrities were expected to attend there were plans to set up a red carpet inthe hotel’s motor court.

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